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time to change the topic guys. did kirito knows that leafa/lyfa was his cousin?

On the topic of Suguha being his cousin - LN version: Yes. WEB version: Not at the start.

Whether Lyfa, the girl he has been hanging around ALO with in the last few anime episodes, being Suguha and therefore his cousin? No, he doesn't find out at this point of the plot in the anime episodes.

SAO is good, but it isn't without its flaws and/or some people prefer different kinds of plot/character. Time-skips are liberally used, some people don't like a hyper-competent protagonist that doesn't seem to be able to fail when the chips are down (as opposed to a protagonist that develops from 'level 1', so to speak), and disregarding whether the use of NTR is effective story-telling or not some people don't like reading about it at all in a story. It's understandable there'll be people out there that don't like SAO, even taking into account the usual 'Haters gonna Hate' crowd that shows up in every fanbase regardless of the series.

I dunno, it's one of those full circle things that happen when you keep up a lot with a certain genre I guess. I've seen way too much of the "Start as a sucky n00b then go through the struggle of the week" that someone who is competent as a protagonist actually becomes appealing. At the same time for some reason the "haters gotta hate" crowd keeps coming back week after week for this series, usually you'd think they'd drop it already. The curse of a popular series I guess?

I dunno, it's one of those full circle things that happen when you keep up a lot with a certain genre I guess. I've seen way too much of the "Start as a sucky n00b then go through the struggle of the week" that someone who is competent as a protagonist actually becomes appealing. At the same time for some reason the "haters gotta hate" crowd keeps coming back week after week for this series, usually you'd think they'd drop it already. The curse of a popular series I guess?

I have to agree that the generic hero's journey to power has been done so many times that a character that has a talent from the start is refreshing rather then a problem to me.

You can't really use the '200 year time with Asuna' argument here, that part got erased from Kirito's head by this point

In other news, I was surprised that Web Ch6 of Alicization was translated recently by the Chinese TLers. I had thought they'd finish CotM first before they get back to this >.>

Spoiler for WEB Ch6 - includes gruesome content:

Basically the backstory of 'Gabriel Michael', the sociopath that's part of the US team attacking Ocean Turtle (and the guy who won the last Barrett of Bullets in GGO, using C4 to blow up Sinon's sniping position). The guy is a textbook-perfect case of a functional sociopath, completely uncaring about other people, willing to kill them for his own goals/entertainment, and not obvious enough to stand out and have measures forced upon them.And yes, I know it's a "textbook-perfect" case because I had taken a psychology course and have the textbook for this >.>

Other detailed descriptions of heinous crimes in the narration aside (such as murder of his family + fiancee, and another four cases of abduction and murder of US civilians besides those), Gabriel have a obsession with Sinon as she put up more of a fight than other players in GGO, and had more realistic responses to other gamers when placed in life-or-death situations. If it weren't for the job to attack Ocean Turtle taking up his time he would have planned out a way to slowly beheading Sinon the next time they fought in the BoB tournament with a combat knife. Yeah, this guy is as messed up as PoH or other major villains of this series.

Other background stuff that's sort of important in this chapter was the 'soul' or Fluctlight is visible to the human eye in SAOverse if the person is killed in a certain way. Gabriel found this out when he killed his fiancee (I'll spare you guys the details), and also when he bought a NervGear off the black market (which costed a fortune) and remodified it to try it out on one of his victims. Frying someone's brains with this also counts as one of the methods that can get a visible fluctlight leaving the corpse.

To conclude, SAO series/characters can be really, really messed up >.>

I am actually happy with the villains. Far too much fiction tries to pretend there aren't any bad people out there. So while some call the extreme villains cartoony, so do I see them more like a hard dose of reality.

Hi, I'm a new guy on this forum. I've finished Volume 10 and I've been looking on the web for days for the web novel versions. Do you have a link or a source I can read them? Don't worry if it's in Chinese, I'm fluent.

He did not have extraordinary athletic ability.
He did not have the intellect or skill of a superhuman genius.
He did not have the fortune needed to run a nation.
He did not have the deductive ability to resolve any incident from his easy chair.
He did not have the beauty to ruin a country with a smile.
He did not have the political power to change history with a snap of his fingers.
He did not have the unbelievable power of a Level 5.
But…
Nevertheless… -

The Chinese translators had already finished Part 3 of Chapter 7 yesterday. It's not a long story though.

Spoiler for Alicization Chapter 7 Part 3:

Right after Kirito and Eugeo left Cardinal's library, they went to the weapons storeroom at third floor to take back their swords but unexpectedly they encountered arrows when they tried to leave the storeroom. Their opponent was a Synthesis Knight with only arrows and a huge bow. Kirito used magic to temporarily blind the knight and Eugeo charged ahead towards him but the knight quickly recovered and then proceeded to shoot all his arrows simultaneously towards them. Kirito and Eugeo barely managed to avoid the arrows. The knight, stunned by their strengths, activated his "Weapon Recollection". Through his "Weapon Recollection", the knight can generate and shoot powerful flame arrow. Kirito devised a plan that he will hold off the knight's flame arrow while Eugeo will move towards the knight to fight him one-to-one since Kirito figured out that the knight can't shoot the arrow more than one time. The flame arrow did penetrated Kirito's ten ice shields but at the same time Eugeo was already in front of the knight. The knight who once again stunned, tried to counter with his fist, however Eugeo blocked it with his sword and finally defeated the knight with his sword skill.

The beaten knight then told Kirito and Eugeo that there were about 12 knights waiting for them at the 50th floor and they might not have a winning chance against those knights. Kirito wondered why he tell them this piece of information. The knight answered that he had failed his mission given by Administrator and had no right to be a Synthesis Knight anymore. He pleaded for them to kill him, Deusolbart Synthesis Seven for good but Eugeo started to rage when he heard this name because he realised that the man in front of him was the knight who captured Alice eight and the half years ago. Eugeo in rage mode tried to kill the man he hated so much brutally but Kirito stopped him, stated that the man in front of them might have his memories of having captured Alice deleted by Administrator. Deusolbart really showed no recollection of his capture of Alice and also pretty much shaken by this fact. Kirito and Eugeo left the shocked Deusolbart behind with Kirito noting Deusolbart: "What you want to do later is up to you to decide. Whether you wish to go back to where Administrator is to receive punishment from her or just heal your wound and chase after us, or maybe....".

While running up the stairs, Eugeo had a feeling that the knight will not chase after them anymore.

Summary spoiler following part above:

Spoiler for Alicization web chapter 7:

After running up for a while, Eugeo and Kirito met 2 monk apprentices named Aashin & Bisten, they're about 10 years old.

They said there's an order for everyone to stay inside their rooms because of the intrusion, but they want to see intruders from Dark Territory with their own eyes, they were surprised that Eugeo & Kirito looked just like normal human. Eugeo noticed they had small daggers but he let down his guard nonetheless, after chatting for a while, they told Eugeo & Kirito their surname, which are "Synthesis Thirty-Eight & Thirty-Nine", before proceeding to stab both Eugeo & Kirito with their daggers, which were coated in paralysis poison.

Aashin & Bisten then dragged Eugeo and Kirito to the 50th floor, where they met 10 Integrity Knights, the boys engaged in arguments with the leader of the Kights "Fanatio", not noticing the black figure behind them started moving. Kirito quickly stole the daggers from the boys and paralyzed both before searching for the anti-paralysis potion from the boy and let Eugeo drink it.

Apparently Kirito suspicious the boys as they said there's an order to stay inside the rooms, which is impossible to defy, so they were certainly not just normal monk apprentices, and Kirito prepared sacred art to counter the poison in advance.

Kirito then proceed to fight the Knights, he used the chance when Fanatio started chanting "Weapon Total Domination", but the 9 remaining Knights went out to protect their leader using a 9-man battle formation.

Kirito managed to destroyed the formation and reached Fanatio, but it was too late as Fanatio already finished chanting, so Kirito was in clear disadvantage as the "Released" state of Fanatio sword was very powerful, Kirito suffered severed injury but he managed to destroy Fanatio's mask, revealing that Fanatio is actually a girl, of course, all those Knights also dumbfounded by this fact.

Eugeo recovered from the paralysis and "released" his Blue Rose Sword, causing ice vines to grab hold of everyone in the hall, all 9 Knights were caught, but Kirito & Fanatio jumped up before they get caught. At this point both of them suffered serious damage, then Kirito proceed to "release" his black sword, the Gigas Cedar appeared, blocked the light attack from Fanatio's sword and stabbed her abdomen, ended the fight.

Fanatio lied in pool of her blood, dying. Kirito tried his best to save her, with Eugeo help, but it won't be enough, he called for help from the Knights, but they also couldn't do anything, then he reminded of Cardinal and used the dagger she gave him to use against Administrator on Fanatio, Cardinal appeared and took Fanatio away to heal her, before giving healing potions to Eugeo & Kirito.

Eugeo & Kirito continue climbing the tower, which no longer has stairs beyond 50th floor, but using a "lift plate" controlled by a female official, she said she did this duty for 107 years, Kirito asked what she wants to do if she's released from this duty, her answer was to lift the plate in the vast sky rather than this gloomy tower.

They now reached 80th floor, which was the highest floor the lift could bring them to, and met Alice.

Kirito told Eugeo he'll try to hold her, while he uses the chance to stab her using his dagger. Kirito then challenged Alice for a duel, Alice accepted, but they didn't know she already released her sword, so their plan failed, Eugeo futilely released his weapon, upsetting Alice that they're cheating, Kirito then released his black sword too, and unintentionally destroyed the wall, Kirito & Alice were thrown out of tower before the crack repaired itself.

It's now at the outside wall of the tower, Kirito had his one hand held on his black sword stabbing into the joint of the rocks, his other hand grabbed hold of Alice's gauntlet wrist. Alice told him to let her die rather than living in disgrace being saved by a sinner. He called her stupid choosing to throw her life away instead of trying to live to fulfill her duty to drive off the intruder.

They came to a temporally truce, which will last until they could get back into the tower. Kirito wanted a rope to tie them in case someone falls, but he didn't have anything to use, Alice decided to transform her gauntlet into a long chain, binding themselves on each end.

Kirito proposed 3 choices: climb down, climb up, or destroy the wall and get back in. Climbing down was not feasible as they're several hundred meters above ground, destroying the wall wasn't an option neither, as the self-repair ability of the wall would be too fast for them to get in, so they decided to climb up, to the 95th floor, which would have windows they could get in.

Kirito used sacred art to create small cylindrical metal objects to use as their footings to assist climbing up, but Alice was too scared to climb up using those small footings. So Kirito had to pull her up with the chain fastened to her sword belt.

Unlike object transform Alice just performed on her gauntlet, space transform Kirito performed didn't require starting object, and unlike settings in normal games, Underworld doesn't have MP system, space transform can be done as long as there was a blessing resource available, either from Terraria or Solus, but Kirito ran out of resource to transform as they were far above the ground to receive blessing from Terraria, and it already turned into the night, so no blessing from light of Solus either. Alice decided to transform her other gauntlet into more metal objects.

But before they could climb up further, a gargoyle came out of a terrace on tower wall and attacked Kirito, he couldn't fight it properly because of the limited footings and no space to swing his sword, but he still managed to injure it using metal object Alice gave him.

Two more gargoyles came out, Kirito was certain they both would fall if they kept fighting in this state, he then quickly pulled and threw Alice over to the terrace, which was about 4m above him, the chain tied both of them was about 5m long. Alice, in turn, pulled him up once she landed on the terrace.

She explained that those were called "Drones", the crude familiars created from lump of earth by those dark arts users in Dark Territory, but she couldn't believe they could slip through the watchful eyes of Integrity Knight and appeared right in the most sacred place of Human World, Kirito then suggested that it might be an action by someone with high authority within the Central Cathedral itself.

They easily got rid of all 3 drones, but it was already night time so they couldn't climb up further, so they decided to rest on the terrace for the night.

-End of Kirito POV and a half way point of chapter 7-

My opinion: the exchange between Alice and Kirito was pretty funny, it reminds me of when Kirito met Lisbeth for the first time, this event should be in volume 12.

SAO has retained first place for the second year in the "Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! 2013" rankings. SAO is the first light novel that has successfully defended the first place in the history of this light novel rankings.

Second place is Index series. Had been beaten by SAO last year by a mere single-digit advantage, this time SAO beats Index by about 130 points.

In character department, Kirito retained first place in the male department while Asuna remained second in the female department, supposedly beaten again by Misaka Mikoto. One more female character in SAO is in top 10. The heroine in the Phantom Bullet arc, Sinon captures the 7th place ranking.

SAO has retained first place for the second year in the "Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! 2013" rankings. SAO is the first light novel that has successfully defended the first place in the history of this light novel rankings.

Second place is Index series. Had been beaten by SAO last year by a mere single-digit advantage, this time SAO beats Index by about 130 points.

Wow, thank you, that's great to hear, any news about top spot of male and female lead?

Edited: I posted too fast, haha. Glad to see abec getting first place too.

To be honest, I gave SAO a try after knowing it gets first place in both series and male lead last year, so I'm very happy that it does even better this year, didn't expect they'll allow the same series to maintain top spot for two consecutive years.

The ranking is very interesting. Biblia old book shop which is the mega seller doesn't make top 20, Mahouka does worse than AW (which I don't enjoy it at all). Nice to see SeiZon made in top 20 even it's already long finished.

Never heard about the 3rd spot, but Rikka name is sure super familiar (Chu-2 byo).

Given the undeniable massive rise in popularity, the only thing the rest of us needed to speculate is who's going to be second place But as it turns out, we didn't need to do that either so we'll move on to third place

六花の勇者 is this year's 'Circlet Girl', with massive support from the collaborators but barely any from the public or that third party.

Baka-Test isn't going anywhere as expected.

OreImo and Durarara triumphantly reclaimed their position back in the top 10.

OMG! Horizon actually broke into the Top Ten LOLOLOL...!

AW almost halves it's distance from SAO, but still not it enough... I doubt it would get a chance like this again until three years later.